Donald Trump has a new retort for anyone in his party or at the White House who’s brave enough to question his judgment: “I’m the president and you’re not.”
Trump, 80, has delivered the line time and again to allies and advisers offering strategic guidance on a mounting run of botched ploys, humiliating gaffes, and screeching U-turns, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper writes that Trump’s childish new catchphrase speaks to how the president now appears to trust his own instincts far more than those of the aides, lawmakers, and old hands who have so far helped grease the gears of his turbulent 18 months back at the White House.
The habit is severely testing his already weakening grip on a party that otherwise spent his first year back in office falling in line. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger last month, told the Journal he was appalled by the president’s new arrangement with Iran.
“Reagan is rolling over in his grave,” the senator told the newspaper of Trump’s self-professed political hero, adding that Trump’s peace deal with the Iranian regime represents “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
Trump signed a tentative agreement to wind down the war with Iran this week. The regime has agreed to reopen a vital oil corridor in the Persian Gulf, while the White House will lift sanctions, unfreeze assets, and help underwrite a $300 billion reconstruction package.
Cassidy’s comments make him only the most vocal of hawkish Republicans to balk at what they say amounts to throwing Tehran an economic lifeline while leaving its weapons program largely untouched.
The president sealed the agreement at a Wednesday dinner at the Palace of Versailles in France, a venue that for more than 100 years has served as a byword for disastrous deals. The Journal reports that the move caught aides off guard, as they had penciled in a separate ceremony for Friday.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, not known for public dissent, called the agreement “completely out of step with the president’s goals.”
Trump has also upended his own party’s timetable on Capitol Hill. He stalled the path of Jay Clayton, a former SEC chairman picked as his incoming director of national intelligence, so that acting director Bill Pulte, a 38-year-old loyalist, could first spend longer slashing jobs at the spy agency.
The freelancing has handed Democrats a trove of attack-ad fodder, the Journal says. Trump has brushed off the coming midterms and, when asked about soaring prices sparked by his war with Iran, offered only, “I love the inflation” as a retort.
Ron Bonjean, a onetime spokesman for Republican leaders in Congress, told the Journal the math has changed. “The total control that Trump once had over Congress just isn’t there anymore,” he said.
The White House has defended the president’s freewheeling approach. Spokesperson Olivia Wales said that “no president has worked harder or delivered more than President Trump.”
The president himself has cast the upheaval as a plus, writing on Truth Social that his moves “add a slight bit of intrigue” but have ultimately served the country.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for further comment on this story.
